If you are reading this, it's too late
Dec 10, 2015 14:09:43 GMT -5
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Nathan Saniti likes this
Post by Grimm on Dec 10, 2015 14:09:43 GMT -5
Speculation abounded anytime the Dillinger brothers faced each other in a sanctioned match. Would this be the night one, or both, of them killed the other? Would the PCW Arena collapse in upon itself? Would Hangtown as a whole cease to exist (there had been talk of the town being nothing more than a reflection of the thoughts of the Brothers Gruesome, a conscious quantum holographic universe of their own making, so the question was not outside the realm of concern)?
No one dared ask them of course, and as the date of their collision approached both had become more and more reclusive. They’d entered a period of concentrated reflection. The brothers kept their own council. There were rumors of sightings. Witnesses swore they saw one or both of the brothers wandering the byways and the hedges in the middle of the night or through an early morning fog. Whatever was true, whatever was false, something was coming. It was building, and it was on the move.
One night, a wave of cold crested the hills and broke over Hangtown.
And brought Phinehas Dillinger with it.
He stood on the corner, under a gas lamp, just outside The Owl & Eel. All manner of festivities and seasonal jocularities were in full vigor inside the tavern, but Phinehas remained without. He picked ancient Noels on an ancient mandolin. His technique was not flamboyant, rather more sparse and devastating instead. He came at it from the view that the real music could be found in the spaces between the notes.
Besides, everyone knew The Stranger conducted his business in such empty places.
As it were, he stood and swayed and played. Meat pies sat on the window sill behind him. Different tunes and snatches of carols could be heard inside the tavern as folks came and went. Others walked by on their own Yuletide errands, some smiling, some nodding, some tossing folding money into the case open at Phinehas’s feet. Though whether the bills were for actual appreciation of the music or in hopes that the offering would be remembered and thus Grimm would serve as a benevolent boogey man over the next year, who was to say. Phinehas acknowledged them all with a tilt of his head.
The gloaming encroached. There in the owl light, where once was nothing but leaves and dust, a familiar yet unwelcome presence swirled into existence beside him. The mercury fell. Townspeople pulled their coats tighter. They shuffled with hunched shoulders and sped up in pursuit of a warm place. They did not see him. They did not see the man in the impeccable suit – his winter solstice suit, cut from the Darkest Night of the Year. Nor did they stand mesmerized by a countenance so pale as to put forth a preternatural glow, and, oh, that grin. (We have addressed the Man in Black’s grin on previous occasions. We shall not speak of it here.) The man stood in the middle of Hangtown without his breath pluming in the cold, and with no stamping of feet or clapping of hands in an attempt to make warm.
Things could be kept secret from most, unacknowledged even by the beholder, but the Man in Black knew many terrible things. “Nothing is hidden from me,” he would say on occasions such as this. “You know that. Even those dastardly monologues you practice in your head. Those unholy threats…”
“Not threats. Those were promises. “
No, only the Lord of Misrule saw him. To those passing by, it looked as if Phinehas muttered his way through double stops and particularly tricky cross picking.
“Even so. I just happened to overhear that little conversation you had with Billy not over a week ago, down there in the root cellar. Those promises weren’t very brotherly of you.”
Phinehas clinched his teeth. “I don’t threaten people, and I don’t hold petty prejudices. I have the same contempt for all my opponents, when and only when they are my opponents. I merely told Billy what would probably happen over the course of this match, and that’s as good as notarized.”
The man’s laugh was as mirthless as any that had ever escaped anyone’s lips.
“Brotherly love. Sibling rivalry. It’s like Cain and Abel all over again.”
“We don't hate each other. We’re not out to purposefully injure one another. This is one more in a lifetime of fights. And sometimes it just so happens that the biggest prize in the PCW is on the line.”
Phinehas grew quiet as a crowd passed. A gentleman in a garish hunter’s cap stopped in front of him and smiled.
“Play Wagon Wheel!”
Phinehas closed his eyes but did not stop playing one of the lesser known Planxties. “Sir, I will put you in the ground.”
The man’s grin fell and he stomped away in a not-quite-so-merry mood. Another dead chuckle met only Phinehas’s ears.
“That’s the Grimm we all know and love. You understand I can help you…”
“No. No deals.”
“But look how I’ve helped good ol’ Billy. He should have died more than once, and yet he remains the greatest world champion that federation has ever known.”
The man turned the pits of charcoal that served as his eyes onto Phinehas.
“I can make you greater.”
Phinehas bowed his head and picked louder.
“Get thee behind me, Sat---“
The Man in Black raised his eyebrows and took a step back. “Whoa, there’s no need for name calling. Let’s keep this professional. You’re well aware of my and master William’s deal. As I see it, Grimm handed Sadistic over to me in the first place.”
Phinehas looked up with furrowed brow. This time his clear arctic blue eyes met the man in equal measure. The man raised a hand.
“That’s how it happened, whether or not Grimm agrees to acknowledge it. I suppose I should thank you for setting this all in motion, and I’d like to suggest that who better than Grimm to bring it all to its inevitable conclusion. It’s not like you wouldn’t get something out of it.”
“I’ll take away his dominion,” Phinehas said, with a flash deep within his orbs of glacial ice, “and as a result, hopefully yours as well.”
…lay you both bare and waste….
The man’s grin stretched wider - Phinehas actually heard it. “Mmmm, such hate. How do you propose to put an end to all of this? Another powerbomb on the back of a chair, perhaps? We know how well that works.”
Phinehas turned his attention back to the mandolin and sighed.
“I don't wish Billy any specific harm. That paralyzing incident was all in the name of friendly competition. Sometimes we get carried away, but we know that is a possibility…always has been, always will be.”
He turned a few tuning pegs until satisfied with the tones. This cold played havoc on the strings.
“I can’t make any guarantees as to what the severity of the outcome will be. I won’t. This match is going to get ugly real fast and only get worse as it goes along, and I don’t know what lengths I’ll have to go to in order to end it."
“But I will go to them. “
Handfuls of merrymakers continued to exit and enter. With each swing of the door one could smell spiced drinks and bushels of chestnuts. Phinehas looked up into a livid sky.
“Billy may have been, um, under duress when he agreed to your terms, but that was ultimately his decision. Whatever transpires between you two is beyond my control. I wash my hands of it. His blood is on him and him alone.”
The man pursed his lips and nodded. “And once this is all over, what then? What was the purpose of everything you two have put each other through? “
“It is a fool who looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart. There’s no meaning to be made from a massacre. I reckon the only thing left to do is listen to the birds. And to ask forgiveness of them.”
“If by birds you mean carrion crows, then yes, I’ll agree to that.”
Candles flared in windows up and down the street while silhouettes moved in and out of the storefronts. The air around Hangtown was one singular murmuration at this point in the evening. The man pulled a silver pocket watch out of the interior of his coat. He clicked it open and Phinehas noted it did not have any hands.
“I’m a busy man, Phinehas. I’ll give you one last chance before I leave. You know I’m good for it.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly forty days into a fast out in a desert somewhere. I can handle this myself. Lord knows I’ve done it before.”
The man shut up the watch and returned it to its pocket. “Maybe, but I just so happen to also deal in matters other than life and death. Maybe instead of tempting you with what you could have…I’ll torment you with what you’ve already lost. And with the knowledge that it’s all. your. fault. How about a peek?”
Phinehas stiffened and narrowed his eyes. The gas lamp overhead conjured flickering shadows across his face.
“I told you once. You’ve got no power here. Hangtown is ours. “
A slight shrug and a look down the street. “I thought as much. Suit yourself. Just know that whatever the outcome, I’m not going anywhere.”
The Man in Black disappeared with the snap of a Christmas cracker and a whiff of sulfur, but the temperature remained as it was. A flurry of snowflakes rushed down the street and drifted along the cobblestones. The door to The Owl & Eel opened, only this time someone addressed the busker directly.
“Phinehas, get in here! I’ve got a pint of Mandrake’s Old Peculiar waiting for you.”
Phinehas finished the tune, put his pick in his pocket, and shut the mandolin up in the case. The tavern keeper held the door open for him and clapped him on the shoulder as he passed into the embrace of the hearth. A cry of “Was hael!” went up from all those inside.
No one dared ask them of course, and as the date of their collision approached both had become more and more reclusive. They’d entered a period of concentrated reflection. The brothers kept their own council. There were rumors of sightings. Witnesses swore they saw one or both of the brothers wandering the byways and the hedges in the middle of the night or through an early morning fog. Whatever was true, whatever was false, something was coming. It was building, and it was on the move.
One night, a wave of cold crested the hills and broke over Hangtown.
And brought Phinehas Dillinger with it.
He stood on the corner, under a gas lamp, just outside The Owl & Eel. All manner of festivities and seasonal jocularities were in full vigor inside the tavern, but Phinehas remained without. He picked ancient Noels on an ancient mandolin. His technique was not flamboyant, rather more sparse and devastating instead. He came at it from the view that the real music could be found in the spaces between the notes.
Besides, everyone knew The Stranger conducted his business in such empty places.
As it were, he stood and swayed and played. Meat pies sat on the window sill behind him. Different tunes and snatches of carols could be heard inside the tavern as folks came and went. Others walked by on their own Yuletide errands, some smiling, some nodding, some tossing folding money into the case open at Phinehas’s feet. Though whether the bills were for actual appreciation of the music or in hopes that the offering would be remembered and thus Grimm would serve as a benevolent boogey man over the next year, who was to say. Phinehas acknowledged them all with a tilt of his head.
The gloaming encroached. There in the owl light, where once was nothing but leaves and dust, a familiar yet unwelcome presence swirled into existence beside him. The mercury fell. Townspeople pulled their coats tighter. They shuffled with hunched shoulders and sped up in pursuit of a warm place. They did not see him. They did not see the man in the impeccable suit – his winter solstice suit, cut from the Darkest Night of the Year. Nor did they stand mesmerized by a countenance so pale as to put forth a preternatural glow, and, oh, that grin. (We have addressed the Man in Black’s grin on previous occasions. We shall not speak of it here.) The man stood in the middle of Hangtown without his breath pluming in the cold, and with no stamping of feet or clapping of hands in an attempt to make warm.
Things could be kept secret from most, unacknowledged even by the beholder, but the Man in Black knew many terrible things. “Nothing is hidden from me,” he would say on occasions such as this. “You know that. Even those dastardly monologues you practice in your head. Those unholy threats…”
“Not threats. Those were promises. “
No, only the Lord of Misrule saw him. To those passing by, it looked as if Phinehas muttered his way through double stops and particularly tricky cross picking.
“Even so. I just happened to overhear that little conversation you had with Billy not over a week ago, down there in the root cellar. Those promises weren’t very brotherly of you.”
Phinehas clinched his teeth. “I don’t threaten people, and I don’t hold petty prejudices. I have the same contempt for all my opponents, when and only when they are my opponents. I merely told Billy what would probably happen over the course of this match, and that’s as good as notarized.”
The man’s laugh was as mirthless as any that had ever escaped anyone’s lips.
“Brotherly love. Sibling rivalry. It’s like Cain and Abel all over again.”
“We don't hate each other. We’re not out to purposefully injure one another. This is one more in a lifetime of fights. And sometimes it just so happens that the biggest prize in the PCW is on the line.”
Phinehas grew quiet as a crowd passed. A gentleman in a garish hunter’s cap stopped in front of him and smiled.
“Play Wagon Wheel!”
Phinehas closed his eyes but did not stop playing one of the lesser known Planxties. “Sir, I will put you in the ground.”
The man’s grin fell and he stomped away in a not-quite-so-merry mood. Another dead chuckle met only Phinehas’s ears.
“That’s the Grimm we all know and love. You understand I can help you…”
“No. No deals.”
“But look how I’ve helped good ol’ Billy. He should have died more than once, and yet he remains the greatest world champion that federation has ever known.”
The man turned the pits of charcoal that served as his eyes onto Phinehas.
“I can make you greater.”
Phinehas bowed his head and picked louder.
“Get thee behind me, Sat---“
The Man in Black raised his eyebrows and took a step back. “Whoa, there’s no need for name calling. Let’s keep this professional. You’re well aware of my and master William’s deal. As I see it, Grimm handed Sadistic over to me in the first place.”
Phinehas looked up with furrowed brow. This time his clear arctic blue eyes met the man in equal measure. The man raised a hand.
“That’s how it happened, whether or not Grimm agrees to acknowledge it. I suppose I should thank you for setting this all in motion, and I’d like to suggest that who better than Grimm to bring it all to its inevitable conclusion. It’s not like you wouldn’t get something out of it.”
“I’ll take away his dominion,” Phinehas said, with a flash deep within his orbs of glacial ice, “and as a result, hopefully yours as well.”
…lay you both bare and waste….
The man’s grin stretched wider - Phinehas actually heard it. “Mmmm, such hate. How do you propose to put an end to all of this? Another powerbomb on the back of a chair, perhaps? We know how well that works.”
Phinehas turned his attention back to the mandolin and sighed.
“I don't wish Billy any specific harm. That paralyzing incident was all in the name of friendly competition. Sometimes we get carried away, but we know that is a possibility…always has been, always will be.”
He turned a few tuning pegs until satisfied with the tones. This cold played havoc on the strings.
“I can’t make any guarantees as to what the severity of the outcome will be. I won’t. This match is going to get ugly real fast and only get worse as it goes along, and I don’t know what lengths I’ll have to go to in order to end it."
“But I will go to them. “
Handfuls of merrymakers continued to exit and enter. With each swing of the door one could smell spiced drinks and bushels of chestnuts. Phinehas looked up into a livid sky.
“Billy may have been, um, under duress when he agreed to your terms, but that was ultimately his decision. Whatever transpires between you two is beyond my control. I wash my hands of it. His blood is on him and him alone.”
The man pursed his lips and nodded. “And once this is all over, what then? What was the purpose of everything you two have put each other through? “
“It is a fool who looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart. There’s no meaning to be made from a massacre. I reckon the only thing left to do is listen to the birds. And to ask forgiveness of them.”
“If by birds you mean carrion crows, then yes, I’ll agree to that.”
Candles flared in windows up and down the street while silhouettes moved in and out of the storefronts. The air around Hangtown was one singular murmuration at this point in the evening. The man pulled a silver pocket watch out of the interior of his coat. He clicked it open and Phinehas noted it did not have any hands.
“I’m a busy man, Phinehas. I’ll give you one last chance before I leave. You know I’m good for it.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly forty days into a fast out in a desert somewhere. I can handle this myself. Lord knows I’ve done it before.”
The man shut up the watch and returned it to its pocket. “Maybe, but I just so happen to also deal in matters other than life and death. Maybe instead of tempting you with what you could have…I’ll torment you with what you’ve already lost. And with the knowledge that it’s all. your. fault. How about a peek?”
Phinehas stiffened and narrowed his eyes. The gas lamp overhead conjured flickering shadows across his face.
“I told you once. You’ve got no power here. Hangtown is ours. “
A slight shrug and a look down the street. “I thought as much. Suit yourself. Just know that whatever the outcome, I’m not going anywhere.”
The Man in Black disappeared with the snap of a Christmas cracker and a whiff of sulfur, but the temperature remained as it was. A flurry of snowflakes rushed down the street and drifted along the cobblestones. The door to The Owl & Eel opened, only this time someone addressed the busker directly.
“Phinehas, get in here! I’ve got a pint of Mandrake’s Old Peculiar waiting for you.”
Phinehas finished the tune, put his pick in his pocket, and shut the mandolin up in the case. The tavern keeper held the door open for him and clapped him on the shoulder as he passed into the embrace of the hearth. A cry of “Was hael!” went up from all those inside.
